While Arcday was theoretically still part of my vacation, since it ended up being the last day of the month this time around, I decided to head for the lab a day early, after talking things through with my parents and James. The talk with my parents was actually easier than the one with James since he had to get confirmation from the Professor, which he or I got, so here I was, back at the lab.
I made sure to catch up on how our post-evolution tests were going, and it seemed that they had done a decent job while I was away. The output had increased to 8 out of 10, and 3 out of those 8 were viable Arctic Hearts. The other 5 had a fusion rate between 96 and 99%. Obviously, our goal was to reduce the output loss to as close to 0 as possible, while also ensuring that all Arctic Hearts produced were viable ones.
At least the second one was necessary for the supply or rather our production capabilities to be considered sufficient, and only when that was the case could we/the lab consider offering the Arctic Heart to the public or the alliance. I had yet to hear how exactly the Professor was planning to deal with the sale of the Arctic Heart.
Still, that made sense since we were not really done with our work for now. By now the ice zone produced by the Arctic Heart had shrunk down to 53 meters in diameter. While 236 meters in about 3.5 weeks was rather slow for many people, it just showed how impressive the environmental conversion ability of our Arctic Heart was.
We talked about it among us, and we believed that it would take up to another 2 weeks before the ice zone had completely dissolved, which gave it a total period of nearly 6 weeks. Surprisingly, that was also how long it took until something great happened to one of my Pokemon.
On Grouday, so just a day before the third week began, I saw that Hades/Haunter was done with his limit-breaking while I was checking everyone's status screens. It took him a bit more than 2 years to go from reaching the (high) bronze stage and evolving to completing his limit-breaking, but I had seen his hard work.
Hades' playful quirk had definitely made itself known, especially in his move pool. He wanted to learn and focus on a few moves I would have probably not focused on, or even bothered learning such as Self-Destruct or Explosion.
Yet, Hades thought that the idea of literally going out with a bang was awesome. Since Hades being a ghost type meant that the moves bore no risks for him, I let him do it, but those were only two of the moves he learned because he thought they would be funny to use in a battle.
Still, each move he learned and trained had its uses, so I only made sure he learned some of the moves I felt he needed, but left the rest of the choices to him. Anyway, once I had confirmed that he was ready to break through to the silver stage I shared the news with everyone, and we gathered at his habitat for the actual event.
Hypno naturally came as well since Hades was practically his best friend in Utopia and I saw him give Hades a thumbs up from his place in the circle, which Hades returned with a double thumbs up. I gave him the pep talk before I stepped back and joined the circle around Hades as well. I then gave him the go-ahead, and he directly initiated his breakthrough.
Once the breakthrough was over I went up to him and congratulated him on reaching the silver stage. He thanked me with a wide happy grin, and that was about as much as we managed before the others rushed over. As usual, I left them be and used the time while they were busy to check the updated status screen.
'Name: Hades
Species: Haunter
Gender: Male
Age: 7+ years
-
Type: Ghost, Poison
Potential: Light Purple (76.84%)*
{Deep Blue (4.68%) -> (16.84%) -> Light Purple (76.84%)}
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Levitate, Infiltrator
Talents: Prankster King*
Affinities: Ghost, Poison
-
Bond: Mikail (weak)
Quirks: A Bit Playful
----
Parameters:
Stage: Silver Stage (mid)
Vitality: F
Strength: F
Endurance: F
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: C
Energy Density: E
----
Immunity:
Normal, Fighting, Ground (while airborne/non-contact)
-
Resistance:
Poison (Major), Bug (Major), Grass (Minor), Fairy (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Psychic (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor), Ground (Minor/if hit)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy
----
Masteries:
Ghost Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)
Poison Energy Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
Gaslight (C)
-
Novice:
Attract (new), Self-Destruction (new), Explosion (new)
-
Beginner:
Lick, Spite, Taunt (new), Energy Ball (new), Thunderbolt (new), Sludge Wave (new), Foul Play (new), Ally Switch (new), Giga Drain (new), Double Team (new), Swagger (new), Scary Face (new), Destiny Bond (+)
-
Proficient:
Confuse Ray, Astonish, Sucker Punch, Payback, Hex, Night Shade, Sludge Bomb (++), Curse (++), Nightmare (++), Toxic(++), Shadow Punch (++), Mean Look (+), Dark Pulse (+), Smog (+), Dream Eater (+), Psychic (new), Protect (new), Poison Jab (new), Shadow Claw (new)
-
Advanced:
Hypnosis, Shadow Ball (+), Poison Gas (+), Venoshock (+), Will-O-Wisp (+3)
-
Mastered:
N/A
-
Combo moves/Custom moves:
Gaslight (in progress)'
Hades had received the usual 160% potential bonus and it had pushed his potential to light purple, with less than a fourth missing for him to attain purple potential. I was confident that I could help him fill that in during his evolution to Gengar with the help of my supplements.
He was now at the silver stage, so it was definitely time to start working on fulfilling the evolution condition necessary for him to evolve. Just like I had previously done so for Tyson/Machamp and Tatsumaki/Alakazam, I had naturally also researched the evolution conditions for Haunter.
I obviously went through both the publicly available information as well as the one in my super library, and I can say that I was quite surprised at how many different methods were available for a Haunter's evolution. I found 3 that were available publicly or rather were known to the alliance as a whole.
However, I found way more methods than that in my super library even if some of those were downright evil. I naturally did not plan on using any of the methods that were even remotely evil, so about 17 methods automatically fell out of the race. Then I eliminated those that were practically the same and filtered the ones that were the best of those that resembled one another until only 5 methods were left.
Still, thinking back to one of the methods I categorized as evil, I decided to edit it so that it could be used without becoming a monster. The old one required the Haunter to kill ghost types and absorb the essence left behind before it could dissipate along with killing poison types to assimilate all their poison and poison energy.
I simply changed that to absorb the energy from items while leaving the absorption and storage part of the technique alone, practically turning it into a pay-to-win version of the evil manual.
Still, while that made sure the method was no longer evil, replacing the evil method also meant that the number of items needed to get the same amount of energy taken from freshly killed Pokemon was enormous. This truly became something only the truly rich could afford to do.
Thankfully I had Utopia and could use it as well, so I added it to the other 5 methods I had chosen. In the end, out of those six methods, one was identical to the three that were publicly known to the alliance, one was being used by some of the old families and clans, one was remade/adjusted by me, and the other three were no longer known to anyone alive.
I had not decided yet which method we should work on, so Hades and I would need to discuss that sometime soon. Anyway, I got off track once again so I focused back on the status screen. I saw that Hades did not unlock a modifier, which did not surprise me.
What did end up surprising me, was that he actually ended up unlocking a talent. I knew of the ability Prankster, so I was guessing and hoping, considering Hades' move pool, that Prankster King was similar to the ability I knew.
A quick check later confirmed that to be the case. Prankster King had practically the same effect as the ability Prankster, with a few additions since it could be considered a superior version. I guess that was where the king part came in. Unlike with Prankster, where dark types were immune to moves affected by it, Prankster King had no such weakness and dark types were just as affected by it as everyone else.
It also had a higher priority than Prankster, so if Hades was pitted against someone with Prankster, the Prankster King talent trumped the Prankster ability, unless, of course, the agility difference between the two Pokemon was so large that the additional priority did not help make up for the speed difference between them.
The talent fit Hades to the tee and worked really well with his move pool, so I was pretty happy with it, as was Hades when I told him about it. Anyway, I moved on to his parameter section and confirmed that he was starting out at the (mid) silver stage.
Also, looking at his parameter values, I could say that it would take a bit of work to reach the (high) silver stage, not to mention the point where he was ready to evolve. I'd say, we had more than enough time to work on fulfilling his evolution conditions since I saw at least two years of work before us to reach the point he could be ready to evolve strength-wise.
The rest of his status screen remained the same, so I stopped focusing on the status screen and turned to my Pokemon. I told them that we would directly be starting the celebration and they all cheered in return. It was on Mewday evening the following week that I actually talked with Hades about the six methods I had available for his evolution.
I straight up told him that I would prefer it if he ignored 3 of those since they were quite a bit inferior to the other three. The only reason I mentioned them was to give him all available options even if three of them were inferior. Thankfully Hades listened to me and told me he would think about which one of the remaining three methods he wanted to go with.
It took nearly the whole remainder of the week, but Hades ended up sharing with me which method he wanted to use. He actually ended up choosing the one I had remade which meant that I would be acquiring and using up a lot of poison and ghost-type items for the next year or two.
Anyway, the week after that was pretty interesting as well, or rather something happened on Giratiday that was quite interesting. The others taking part in the Glaceon project had been working on finishing up their current undertakings, and those that managed to do that went to the Leafeon side to help after their products failed.
By this point, only one group of three had been left, and they also managed to finish up that day. However, unlike the other groups, their item/trigger actually worked and the Eevee evolved. Moreover, unlike our Arctic Heart, which had a multitude of capabilities and a higher price, their item was only intended as an evolution trigger and was thus within the set price limit.
This meant that their item actually ended up being the "better" evolution trigger within the set conditions of the project even if our Arctic Heart was the "superior" item in general. We were still told to finish our tests, and that our Arctic Heart would be used/sold by the lab, but the Professor and James told us that the Frost Crystal would become the new main evolution trigger for the Glaceon species.
It took that group less than a week to finish their after-evolution tests. Once they were done, the Glaceon project was officially declared complete, and the three assistants also moved on to the Leafeon group to assist them, while my group was still finishing up our Arctic Heart project.
Honestly, no one in my group had expected that someone would end up producing a more "appropriate" item so to say, so we did not know what to think. Ultimately, there was nothing we could do, so we simply resumed our work and consoled ourselves with the knowledge that our product was better.
The day after that, Stan/Gyarados actually began his limit breaking, which was good news for me. Giratiday came and went by and with it, the month also ended. Yet, we were still not done with our work.
-----------------------------
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